“Graduate faculty members in the communication program have attracted more than $35 million in externally funded research grants in health communication.

-- Roy L. Moore,
associate dean for the graduate program,
College of Communications and Information Studies,
University of Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 10, 2004) --The health communication component of the doctoral program in the University of Kentucky College of Communications and Information Studies has climbed from 11th to 6th place in a national ranking of such programs.

The study includes findings from an 84-page questionnaire modeled on the National Research Council Study of doctoral programs. The study was completed by 376 faculty respondents from colleges and universities around the nation, said J. David Johnson, dean of the UK College of Communications and Information Studies.

Respondents rated the “reputations” of nine different types of doctoral programs in communication other than their own. A previous study, ranked our Department of Communication first in funded research.

“This is especially important since the students in our graduate program are directly involved in federally funded research that addresses ‘Kentucky Uglies,’” Johnson said. “Our faculty can take great pride in the accomplishments of our graduate program since its inception only 30 years ago.”

Roy L. Moore, the college’s associate dean for the graduate program, echoed the dean’s sentiments and gives credit to the faculty for the increase in the rankings, “five notches in seven years.”

“Graduate faculty members in the communication program have attracted more than $35 million in externally funded research grants in health communication,” Moore pointed out. He noted that three graduate students have served as interns in the National Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C., in the past few years and one has been asked to continue an additional year as a Cancer Research Fellow.

Nancy Grant Harrington, chair of the Department of Communication, said, “This newest ranking, which places us sixth in the nation in health communication, shows that our efforts in funded research and graduate student education are being recognized by programs across the country.”

One of the students who agreed with the new high ranking for the communication program is Melissa Harris, a student who hopes to earn her doctorate at the UK College of Communications and Information Studies by May 2006. She is working on one of Harrington’s research grants, testing an online, anti-marijuana interactive intervention program.

She said the reputation of the college’s programs is one of the reasons she came here from Virginia. “I read about the pioneering, sensation-seeking research done by Dr. Lewis Donohew in my research for a master’s from Regent University in Virginia Beach.

“I discovered this college’s programs were near the top in funding for communication research,” she added. “They certainly deserve that ranking because the faculty work so hard to bring in funding to provide research opportunities for students.”